1,594 more awaiting kindness of a kidney donor

Gissel is the pool guy who offered a stranger one of his kidneys. Last Wednesday, he checked in to Mayo Clinic and by Thursday afternoon, he was home.

Not such a big deal, he says, except that it is a very big deal to the guy who got the gift of that kidney.

"What he did is just astounding," former KFYI-AM radio talk-show host Bob Mohan told me, from his hospital bed. It was just a day after surgery and Mohan said he was already feeling better.

Mohan, 74, has polycystic kidney disease, a genetic disorder that killed his kidneys about 18 months ago. Since then he's been tied to dialysis three days a week, four hours a day -- an emotionally and physically exhausting experience that both saved his life and sabotaged it.

Mohan didn't have a family member who could offer a kidney and no friends stepped forward. He, like so many, was forced to wait for the kindness and the courage of a stranger, the right stranger.

Tim Gissel, 44, sells pool and backyard remodeling jobs for CDC Pools, of Chandler. When he went to give an estimate on extending the Mohans' patio, it was clear to him that Mohan was not doing well and he asked why.

After hearing the story, Gissel went home and talked it over with his wife, his two children and his friends. "I had people tell me you shouldn't do this and had people say do it," he told me.

"I had one friend call up and say, 'Do you want to know what I think you should do?' And I said, 'What?' He said, 'Do what God wants you to do.'"

After an extensive battery of tests to make sure that he was healthy enough to give away a kidney, and that Mohan was healthy enough to make good use of it, the surgery was performed last Wednesday. Next week, Gissel plans to return to work.

Though Gissel has experienced some post-operative pain, he says it's nothing compared to the pleasure of changing somebody's life.

"I would do it again for anybody, just because of the reaction when I was coming out of recovery," he said. He was referring to that moment when Mohan awakened and was told the kidney was working.

If only there were another 1,594 people like Gissel -- one for each of the Arizonans on the list for a kidney, praying and hoping and waiting, waiting, waiting for a day that may never come. Three more were added to the list just in the past week.

A woman named Susan wrote to remind me that they are out there. Her husband is among them. He, like Mohan, suffers from polycystic kidney disease.

"He, too, has had trouble finding a living donor among family and friends and must rely on the 'list,' " she wrote. "A living donor is a far better option than a cadaver donor. The current research says that donors live as long, or sometimes longer than the average person. I am mystified at the dearth of volunteers who have it within their power to literally give the gift of life."

Last week, I listed the phone number for the Mayo Clinic's Kidney Transplant/Kidney Donor Team (480-342-1010). Susan asked that I let you know that Mayo is not the only hospital that offers transplants. Her husband awaits one through Banner Good Samaritan (602-839-0203).

Until those phones ring, people like Susan's husband will continue waiting. Last year, 305 Arizonans received kidneys. Just over half came from living donors.

"I think many people still assume that organs must come from close relatives. With the advent of better anti-rejection drugs, that is no longer true," Susan told me. "I thought about writing a letter to the editor echoing my thanks, but my husband would be mortified at this kind of public exposure. As he has stated, 'People know I need a kidney and if they really wanted to, they would have donated by now.'

"Sadly that is true. But your article gave us hope that one day, a kind stranger may be inspired to do the same for another human being."